Apart From Love (15 page)

Meanwhile, I’ve gone ahead with the Piano course, even though I’ve given up any hope on extending my stubby thumb, or growing my fingers any longer. And from time to time I would buy some piano sheet music for beginners, like
Caprice
by Paganini, and practice it—but only in school, and never when he’s around, ‘cause them keys, they may stick under my fingers, which would make my song stutter—and Lenny expects me to be perfect. He expects me to be her.
 

Which is why—in spite of me working so hard to try, to become better—he still complains.
 

Like, I’ve learned more ways to say things, and improved my vocabulary. I’m awful proud of saying
vocabulary
; which in plain talk means I have a lot of new words up here, in my head, which can confuse me sometimes, and even leave me speechless—unless I sound them out loudly, right away. Even so, Lenny says that my grammar is atrocious. I am, in his words, a
work in progress
. I wonder if she ever felt as choked by him—I mean, by what he expects—as I do.
 

And so I’m sitting here in the dark, in front of her piano, folded over my stomach because of this sharp pain, which make me scared silly. I wish ma was here, ‘cause like, even if she would give me a good slap, still, at least I could feel a touch, which would be better than this sorry state of being here, in the back of beyond.
 

Me, I’m so lonely I want to wail, to cry, to wash away the hurt—but my eyes, they’re burning. They’re dry, like, completely. I guess that being depressed is so much better when you can’t shed a tear.

So instead I raise my head and with wild, vicious force, I bang my forehead, then bang it again against the keyboard. I’m free now, so free to attack it. The beast wakes up, and from its belly springs a sharp, fierce cry, which makes the air tremble in bursts, short bursts coming at me, doubled by echoes from every wall, every corner.

Meanwhile, in the background, I can hear them blinds, like, smacking each other, and giving way, suddenly, to a gust of wind. And there, in the opening of the glass door, which leads to the balcony, I spot his outline, standing behind the tape recorder.
 

The moonlight shines briefly on his shoulders as Lenny crosses the threshold. With a slight limp he makes his way in, and leans over my shoulders. And I can feel his strong arms wrapping around mine, arresting me, blocking my attempt to bang, bang, bang the keys. He turns me around—but me, I try to refuse him, and I fight like a savage, like a cat, and something surges in me, so in my fury I push him, I shove him away real hard, till he falls to his knees before me.
 

It’s then that he locks his hands around me, and all of a sudden he lays his head, so tender like, in my lap. And there, in the dark, I touch his forehead, surprised to find not only the usual pleat—the one that brings back to me a memory of my pa—but a few more wrinkles, screwed up over his eyes. Which makes me figure out his expression: tormented.

So I hold myself back from saying, Where was you, I was awful lost here, all by myself for so many hours, and I thought that for sure, you’ve gone away. And instead I caress him, and take his face between my hands, and smooth his forehead with a kiss, asking, “What is it, what happened? Lenny, you crying?”

In place of an answer he fumbles in his shirt pocket, and from there gets his by-focals—even though the only thing to see here, in the darkness, is a patch of moonlight, which is blurry anyway, even with perfect vision; and the only thing to read is my face.
 

He puts the glasses on, like, to hide behind them; which makes me wonder. During the last ten years I’ve learned there’s something about his wife, Natasha, something he conceals not only from me, but from his son, even. So I reckon it must be laying heavily on his mind.

“Oh, Lenny,” I say, “just tell me what it is, will you? How hard can it be, to stop being the keeper of secrets?”
 

“I am worse than that,” he says. “I am the inventor of lies.”

“You’re a writer,” I shrug. “So, you make things up. What’s so wrong with that?”

He turns away from me to wipe something in his eye, which makes me figure that he’s shutting himself off.
 

So I try again. This time I say, “Let me read your stories.”

“No,” he says. “My writing is not the place where the fiction is.”

“But Lenny,” I plead, “don’t you think you could make things so much easier, for you and me and everyone else, if only you said something real, like, if you told me the truth?”

He shakes his head, refusing me, trying to pull himself out of my hold, which makes me lose my balance and fall to my knees opposite him, right there on the floor, between the claws of the piano, so that now we’re face to face.
 

There’s more light now, which brings out more of him. And so, seeing him in such an agony I say, “You’ve taught me so much, Lenny. I note every one of your words, especially the ones I don’t hardly get. I repeat them in my head, so that later I can figure out what they mean, and even use them, instead of just saying
things
.”

“All I know,” he blurts out, “is this: the words you learn—she forgets.”

He don’t really name her—but we both recognize who it is he’s talking about. By now I know that Lenny knows that I don’t want no explanations from him, no matter how hard he gets, or how closed his face becomes. I’m not one to pry—but then again, maybe the time’s come for him to try, like, try to confide in me. Maybe prying things open isn’t such a bad idea.
 

And so I suggest, “Why not tell me something about her?”

“No,” he says, biting his lips. “I have said too much already.”
 

Me, I watch him in silence, and before I can say nothing he adds, “No. There is no way for you to understand, to take in what she is going though.”

“Maybe not,” I say. “But just, try me.”

“No,” he repeats, a third time. “Yesterday, I tried to tell Ben, which was a mistake, a big mistake. Oh hell... What kind of a father am I? I should have kept my mouth shut, because since then he has left, and stayed out all night, who knows where. And with these legs under me, I can do no better than sit there, on the balcony with the tape recorder, and just, let my mind wander...
Rewind, Play, Rewind, Play
... I will never forgive myself if—”

“
Stop
, just stop it! Stop torturing yourself,” I cut in. “Maybe he just needs some time alone.”

He turns his head away, over his shoulder, and glances at the thin, vertical intervals, right there between them blinds. By now you can start to detect, as if by reflection, a balcony. It’s kinda identical to ours, and cast back from the other building, the building directly there, opposite us.
 

It seems like Lenny’s trying to guess—by the graying of the dark—how much time until daybreak. He presses the sides of his head, till a vein flares up on his temple, pulsing there between the nails of his fingers.
 

“If anything happens to Ben it would be on me. It would be entirely my fault. My God,” he says. “I should have buried the whole thing, and kept it there, in the grave.”

He don’t speak no more after that.
 

By now, the night is almost gone. It’s peeling away, like an old, silvery blue wallpaper, rolling in from the corners. There, in the balcony facing us, an old woman comes out in a loosely tied bathrobe, rubbing her eyes, kinda sleepy. She waters her plants, floods her dry geranium, then goes back inside, pulling the sliding glass door shut behind her, with a long, deafening screech.
 

Lenny winces. I can tell: this isn’t what he’s listening for.

Now, more familiar sounds: a car is being started in the parking area, making a knocking noise, ‘cause it’s an old clunker and the engine is still cold. Finally it lurches, somehow, into the street and you can hear it like, turning away, even as the brakes of another car is being stepped on, followed by a sudden, rubbery squeal.
 

This isn’t what he’s listening for.
 

It’s Morning. You can hear water gushing through the pipes inside the walls, because there, in the apartment next door, someone has just started taking a shower. Meanwhile, in the garden below, the sprinklers come on, spluttering water one spit after another.
 

This isn’t what he’s listening for.
 

For him, all them sounds are being drowned out by the tick, the incessant tick, tick, tick of the old alarm clock. The little hammer on top of it is idle, and so is the twin bells. They’re just hanging there, left and right of the hammer, reflecting this whole room, and the piano, and us, too. We seem so unlike ourselves, bent out of shape in their brass finish.
 

So tense, so distorted, so small.
 

It’s almost six. The hour hand’s dropped down, as if defeated, at last, by the force of gravity, a force which the minute hand is still trying to fight. Now it seems to have come to a stop. It’s stuck there, just short of its mark.
 

I stare at it thinking, I should get up from the floor already. I should take hold of the clock, ignoring its curvy surface, which shows a mirror image of my hand, and of my split lifeline. I should wind up the key, right there in the back of it, so that time’s gonna move forward, and the little hammer at the top’s gonna hurry up and at last, strike them bells.
 

Just then, quick footsteps can be heard, climbing the stairs. And by the rhythm I know who it is—and so does Lenny.
 

So we hold each other and struggle, somehow, to our feet, and I hand him his crutch so he can reach the entrance door, in a big hurry, and like, greet his son.

And watching him as he turns away from me, I think to myself, He’s afraid, he don’t want to tell me nothing—but still, I’m glad he’s started to open the door for Ben.
 

Things could be so much simpler. If only...

How sad it is that at this moment, when Lenny is injured and here, behind him, I’m holding my belly because of this dull pain, this is the time we keep ourselves apart, in an effort, a lame effort to play our game, play it now in front of the boy, as if, I swear, as if all is well.
 

Oh, at last—the alarm! The ringing of them bells! The sound of laughter... How lonely it must be, to be the keeper of secrets, the inventor of lies.

As Told by Anita

I
n my defense I have this to say: When men notice me, when the lusty glint appears in their eyes, which betrays how, in their heads, they’re stripping me naked—it’s me they accuse of being indecent.
 

Problem is, men notice me all the time.

How can a girl like me ever claim to be innocent? Even if I haven’t done nothing wrong, I’m already soiled, simply because of their dirty thoughts.
 

And sometimes, it’s because of their actions. Like the time I was twelve, and Johnny shoved me into the bathroom and pinned me to the floor. And afterwards, he pointed his finger at me, saying
I made him do it
, ‘cause to him, I looked sexy, more sexy even than my ma, whom he was gonna take on a date, just as soon as she would come back from her evening shift and like, freshen up. But I, he said, was fresh anyhow.
 

So I try to forget the yellow stain at the foot of the toilet, and the hard, sticky floor, both of which took care of the freshness all right—but still, to this day I go on learning how to live with the blame.

And it don’t matter, really, if I try to keep my eyes lowered, and stay out of the way, and wrap myself in something modest, like this old, rumpled blanket which I’ve just fetched from the sofa, ‘cause any second now, they may be coming in here.
 

So I bundle myself, bringing the corners of the blanket under my arms, and tying them tightly over my breast, so the edge winds up gathering the flesh, a bit like the pleats of a curtain. Oh shoot, I don’t hardly care! I’ve come to dislike the way I look, and dread that thing in me, which they see as a
power
—but I know as a curse.